the arrival of the post was almost the only excitement at dreams, and on the days that the indian and south african mails came, mrs. douglas could do nothing but pore over the precious letters. she pounced on them when they arrived, and read them anxiously; after luncheon she read them again, and in the evening she read them aloud in case she or ann had missed a word.

one evening she sat with a pile of letters on her lap, her large tortoise-shell spectacles on the top of the pile, and said, with a satisfied sigh:

"this has been a good day—news from all quarters. i am glad jim is having this tour. he does love to see the world, and to be able to combine business and pleasure makes a holiday ideal. charlotte and mark seem to be enjoying their trip greatly, but i can see charlotte's thoughts are always with the children. she says she knows they won't be missing her, but i think she is wrong. i dare say they are quite happy, but they must feel a lack. charlotte has such pretty ways with her children, and i think they realise that they have got rather a special mother, though rory says, 'poor mummy's english, but we're scots.' i do wonder, ann, when rory is going to begin to write better. this letter is a disgrace, both in writing and spelling, and his school report said that he cared for nothing but cricket and food."

"what does it matter, mother?" said ann comfortably; "he is only nine. i'm glad he isn't precocious, and i like his staggering little letters. he said to me once, 'p'r'aps you notice that i always say the same thing in my letters?' i said that i had noticed a certain lack of variety in his statements, and he explained, 'you see, those are the only words i can spell, and i don't like to ask people.' it isn't in the least that he lacks brains. he knows all sorts of things outside his ordinary lessons: about the ways of birds and beasts you can't fickle him; and he reads a lot and has his own ideas about things. he hates oliver cromwell and all his works. one day at table some one mentioned that great man, and rory's face got pink all over, and he said, 'i hate him, the sieve-headed brute.' it was funny to see mark, whose admiration for oliver cromwell is unbounded, surveying his small son. a more unjust accusation was never made, but rory is a born royalist."

mrs. douglas shook her head. "he ought to write better than he does. i don't think children are taught properly now. have they copy-books? i used to write copperplate; indeed, i got a prize for writing."

"i know," said ann, "and one for spelling, and one for dictation, and one for composition, and one for french. you used to reel them off to me when i came home without a single one. the only prize i got was for needlework, and i fear it was more by way of a consolation prize than anything else. no wonder i feel for poor old rory. alis is more of your school of thought; she is a clever child."

mrs. douglas refused to be optimistic. "alis picks things up almost too easily. i'm afraid she will be a jack-of-all-trades. did you read nannie's letter? rob and davie seem to be thriving. charlotte will find a great difference in the little pair." mrs. douglas put on her spectacles and took up a letter to read extracts, but ann caught her hand.

"not now, mother, please; we must talk of glasgow now. i want to finish your life this week and get begun to my christmas presents. you'll read the letters to us when marget and mysie come in to prayers.... i wish you would give me your advice, for, after all, it is your affair. so far i have drawn your portrait as a very efficient, very painstaking, and, i fear, very dull minister's wife. you see, that side of you is so easy to draw. but the other side is so much more you. if i could only write about you as i remember you at home with us, anxiously doing your best for every one, slaving away with sales of work and mothers' meetings, incorrigibly hospitable, pretending deep and abiding pessimism, but liable at any moment to break into bursts of delightful nonsense and rash talking—the person who never talks rashly is a weariness to the flesh—a most excellent mimic—when you came in from visiting, you made us see the people you had been seeing—with a rare talent for living..."

mrs. douglas laid down her stocking and gasped at her daughter:

"ann! i don't know what you mean. there never was a more ordinary woman, and if you try to make me anything else, you are simply romancing. i'm sure you have always said that you would know me for a minister's wife a mile away."

"in appearance, my dear lady, you are a typical minister's wife, but your conversation is often a pleasing surprise. and, oh! surely, mother, all ministers' wives don't behave to congregations as you did. given to hospitality should be your epitaph. i remember when we left glasgow, mrs. nicol, bemoaning to me your going away, said, 'well, we'll never get another like her. who else would have bothered to have me and my wild boys in her house?' and i, remembering john and mackenzie, could have echoed, 'who, indeed?'"

mrs. douglas was about to speak, but ann hurried on:

"no, mother, don't defend them. you can't have forgotten that black day when the nicol family arrived to spend the afternoon—john and mackenzie, ripe for any wickedness. the house had just been spring cleaned, and was spotless, and those two boys went through it like an army with banners. it was wet, and they couldn't go out to the garden, and they scoffed at the very idea of looking at picture-books. they slid down the banisters, they tobogganed down the white enamelled stairs, they kicked the paint off the doors. they broke davie's cherished air-gun, and their mother, instead of rebuking them, seemed to admire their high spirits. utterly worn out, i left them to work their wicked will in the box-room—i thought they would be comparatively harmless there; but presently we smelt burning, and found them in your bedroom with the towel-horse on fire. no man knows how they accomplished it, for a towel-horse isn't a particularly inflammable thing, but if i hadn't managed to throw it out of the window, i believe the house might have been burned down."

mrs. douglas laughed, and told her daughter not to exaggerate.

"mrs. nicol was a particularly nice woman, and there was nothing wrong with john and mackenzie except high spirits. mackenzie came to see us at priorsford—i think you must have been away from home—such a quiet, well-mannered young fellow. both he and his brother are doing very well. the nicols were mild compared to the wrights—you remember phil and ronald?"

ann threw up her hands at the mention of the names.

"the wrights," she said, "were really the frozen edge. the only thing mrs. wright had ever been able to teach her offspring was to call her 'mother dear,' which they did religiously. davie was no model, but he sat round-eyed at the performance of the wrights when they came to tea. they mounted on the table and pranced among the butter and jam dishes, and to all their mother's anguished entreaties to desist they replied, in the broadest of accents, 'we wull not, mother dear—we wull not.' they thought davie's accent rather finicking—davie's accent which at that stage was a compound of low glasgow and broad linlithgow picked up from the nursemaid—and asked, 'is davie english, mother dear?'

"'no, no, darlings' (mrs. wright's own accent was all that there was of the most genteel), 'he only speaks nicely.' marget used to shake her head over the wrights and say, 'eh, i say, thae bairns need a guid skelpin'.'"

"yes," said mrs. douglas; "but the last time i saw the wright boys they were the most glossy-looking creatures—you know the kind of young men whose hair looks unnaturally bright and whose clothes fit almost too well; don't you call them 'knuts'?—with supercilious manners and glasgow-english voices, and i rather yearned for the extremely bad but quite unaffected little boys they once had been."

"i know; one often regrets the 'lad that is gone.' boys are like pigs, they are nicest when they are small. talking of the wrights reminds me of a children's party we once gave, to which you invited a missionary's little girl, and two black boys. you had never seen them and thought they would be quite tiny, and when they came they were great strong creatures with pointed teeth. somebody told us they had teeth like that because they were cannibals, and, after hearing that, it was a nightmare evening. we played hide-and-seek, and every one screamed with terror when caught by the poor black boys. it was terrible to see them eating sandwiches at supper and reflect on what they would have liked to eat."

"oh, ann! the poor innocents! they weren't cannibals; they were rescued by the missionaries when they were babies. but i must say i was rather alarmed when i saw how big they were. they didn't realise their own strength, and i was afraid they might hurt some of the little ones. i spent an anxious evening, too."

"mother," said ann, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her face supported in her two hands, "you were dreadfully given to spoiling the look of my parties. the boys didn't mind, but i was a desperate little snob. it seemed impossible for me to have the kind of party other girls had, with all the children prettily dressed, and dancing, and a smart supper. at the last moment you were always discovering some child who was crippled and didn't get any fun, or some one who hadn't a proper party frock and hadn't been asked to any parties. you told them it didn't matter what they wore to our house, and insisted on their coming—'compelled them to come in.' oh, you were a real 'highways and hedges person'! as a matter of fact, it wasn't at all kind to ask those children. they felt out of it and unhappy, no matter how much one tried. if you had asked them when there wasn't a party, and they could have had all the attention, it would have been infinitely better."

"oh, i dare say," said mrs. douglas. "i've spent my life doing impulsive things and regretting them. but, ann, though you laugh at me about having so many people to the house, the trouble we took was nothing compared to the pleasure it gave. in our church there were so many who needed encouragement: single women fighting for a living and coming home after a long day's work to cook their supper over a gas-ring were glad at times to get a well-cooked and daintily served meal, with people to talk to while they ate; and mothers cooped up in tiny flats with noisy children liked to walk to a green suburb, and get tea and home-made scones and jam; and it does make a difference to boys from the country, living in lodgings, if they know there is some house they can go to whenever they like."

"true, my dear, true, and i don't suppose you ever denied yourself to anyone, no matter how tired, or ill, or grieved you were feeling. you welcomed them all with 'gently smiling jaws.' do you remember the only occasion on which we said 'not at home'? we had been at the church hall all afternoon preparing it for a church 'at home' and had just come in for tea and a short rest, with the prospect of three hours' solid smiling later in the evening. when i found the housemaid going to answer the door-bell i hissed at her, 'say not at home,' and by sheer bad luck the caller turned out to be a minister's wife from a distance, who had depended on being warmed and fed at our house. she had gone home cold and tealess and, as a consequence, got a bad chill, and we felt so guilty about it we trailed away to see her, and on hearing she had a sale of work in prospect—when has a minister's wife not a sale of work in prospect?—we felt bound to send her a handsome contribution. i sadly sacrificed on the altar of remorse some pretty silver things i had brought from india, feeling it an expensive pleasure to say 'not at home.' but of course you are right. now that it is all over and we have long hours to read and write and think long thoughts, it is nice to feel that you helped a lot of people over rough bits of the road and didn't think of how tired it made you."

mrs. douglas looked at her daughter with unsmiling eyes. "do you know what i feel?" she asked. "i feel that i have done nothing—nothing. all the opportunities i was given, i can see now how i missed them; while i was busy here and there, they were gone. and i grumbled when i trudged down to the sewing-class on monday nights, leaving all you children. i used sometimes to envy the mothers who had no kirk, and no meetings, and could spend their evenings at home. i had to be out so many nights of the week. no wonder poor little davie said, 'i wish i had a mother who didn't go to meetings.' and it was such a long way home. standing shivering in the wind and rain at the corner of bridge street, waiting for a car, i wondered if there would ever come a time when i would sit at my ease in the evenings with no late meetings to bother about. i didn't know how blessed i was. 'the almighty was still with me, and my children were about me.' how could i know when i yearned for ease and idleness that when i got them i should sit bereft, and ask nothing better than the old hard-working days back——"

ann said nothing for a minute, but sat scribbling on a corner of her paper; then she looked at her mother, and her eyes were half sad, half merry:

"it's an odd thing, motherkin, that only very good people feel their own shortcomings. now, i, covered as with a garment by sins of omission and commission, am quite perky and well pleased with myself. i walk on my heels and think what a noble creature i am, and how much people must admire me. try being complacent, my dear, for a change! it's much more comfortable. you know, mother, you should have been a roman catholic, then you could have worn a hair shirt, and done all sorts of little penances and kept yourself happy."

"oh, ann!" mrs. douglas gave a laugh that was almost a sob. "you do talk such utter nonsense, but you look at me with your father's eyes..."

"well, what i want is to get some information about the glasgow part of your life. you started a lot of new things, didn't you, in connection with the church?"

"oh yes, a sewing-class and a mother's meeting, and a fellowship meeting and a literary society—i forget what else, but they were all more or less successful. martyrs people were delightful to work with—so appreciative."

"and very amusing," said ann; "i always enjoyed their remarks about things. i overheard one young man say, as he wiped his heated brow after a thoroughly unventilated evening spent looking at magic-lantern slides of various mission stations—'my! i'm fair sweatin' comin' through thae tropics.' we always called him 'tropics' after that. what they thoroughly enjoyed was being asked to our house. it wasn't till i grew up that i appreciated those parties, but i very distinctly remember some you gave at the time of your silver wedding to let every one see the presents. we tried to assort the people—young men and women in the evening, and matrons in the afternoon. it wasn't always easy to find suitable topics to converse on with the matrons, but one afternoon some one started the subject of washing clothes, and it called forth a perfect flood of eloquence. every one had something to say, and we thrashed out the subject from the first stage of soaking the clothes until they were starched and ironed and put away. there didn't seem to be one more word that could be said about it when the arrival of some newcomers made rearranging the room necessary. as i moved about, i saw one woman hitch her chair nearer her neighbour and heard her say thrillingly, 'speakin' aboot washing, mrs. law, did ye ever try——' it became a favourite saying with us. when robbie wanted to change the subject he always began, 'speakin' aboot washing, mistress law——'"